


invite link

by SebGray



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, F/M, Fandom AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:21:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21992854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SebGray/pseuds/SebGray
Summary: Jester Lavorre is a popular fan artist for the popular D&D webseries, Hit Dice. Caleb Widogast is a literature professor who enjoys writing fanfiction on the side. When the two meet on a server for the most popular ship in the fandom, they discover that they're each other's biggest fans.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 49





	invite link

**Author's Note:**

> No explicit sexual content yet.

Jester watched her notifications on her Twitter pop up as the attention poured in for her latest piece. It was another popular drawing for Robimew, the biggest ship in the fandom. The piece was not Jester’s best work but people were requesting it again so she threw them a bone with a simple kissing sketch. It got her more attention, though, so she wasn’t about to complain. Every so often she checked what people were saying in order to block the people shit-talking the ship, because even though it wasn’t her favorite, she wasn’t going to tolerate that kind of crap. Eventually, she got bored and set aside her phone for a little while, instead returning to her bookmarks on the fanfic site, refreshing again. She wanted to see if katze_writing had updated their Regency AU yet.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

She got bored and tried to look for something else. After looking through the latest fics in the Hit Dice tag, nothing new caught her eye. There was a new Robimew fanfic, some canon-based thing she wasn’t entirely intrigued by, a PWP Alicetair fic that sounded pretty bland, and an E-rated Jereclair modern AU written by an author who Jester knew didn’t understand how gay sex worked. She sighed. None of these ships were ones she even really liked. Alice and Alistair were probably going to be endgame in this current campaign, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Nothing wrong with the neutral good cleric/chaotic neutral turned chaotic good rogue. And some of the fics for that ship had good ideas, like the one where Alistair multiclassed as a cleric for Alice’s god, or this class swap one with Alistair as a trickery cleric and Alice as an arcane trickster rogue. But she wasn’t super into it in canon. Then there was Jeremy and Sinclair, the popular m/m ship of this second campaign. Jeremy was a wound-up wizard with some dark and angsty past, and Sinclair was a wild magic sorcerer with crazy high charisma and crazy low wisdom. They barely interacted most of the time, and the few times they did always rubbed Jester the wrong way. Sinclair’s drunken attempt at flirtation in episode twenty-four was just weird, especially since Mike, the poor guy playing him, rolled a natural one twice on a roll with disadvantage.

But then there was Robin/Bartholomew.

In the previous campaign, Robin and Bartholomew were the endgame power couple. Robin was a druid/ranger multiclass with a tendency to transform into bears and a shy forest dweller turned power domme character arc that Jester honestly liked. And Bartholomew was cool, too. He was a wizard with ties to a school of necromancers, and while he was charismatic and charming and flirtatious, he had a lot of issues, deep down under the surface. He was Jester’s favorite. She had watched and rewatched the moment where he confronted his abusive father, the head of the Order of the Bloody Skull, the big bad guys of the campaign. The actor playing him, Austin, was incredible. He sat at the table, tears in his eyes, as he rolled the most perfect natural twenty and got the big finishing move that burnt Sir Daxton to a crisp from the inside out. It was amazing.

But she still didn’t like them, at least not together.

She really shipped Robin with her childhood best friend, Ivy, another druid from her tribe who had appeared as an NPC. Craig, the DM, and Leah, the one playing Robin, were married in real life, and the chemistry between them was always off the charts. Not to mention the fact that Ivy, the bubbly druid who regularly talked to plants and butterflies, was able to help Robin through the beginning of her character arc, getting her out of her isolated shell and allowing her to trust people again. The moment where Ivy got her to talk about how Robin's mother, their tribe’s leader, nearly let her die in a trial to decide whether or not she was eligible to follow her mother’s footsteps was where Jester started shipping them. Nothing was ever confirmed, of course, but Craig’s ambiguous answer as to whether or not Ivy was gay or bi made it real in her heart.

Then there was Bartholomew and Carrick.

Carrick was another NPC, a kind, soft-voiced innkeeper who worked in the city where the group had their headquarters. His inn was the one they often crashed at. He was also good friends with Bartholomew, since Carrick had taken him in and hid him in a secret room when he was on the run from his father before the game started. From the beginning, it was pretty clear Carrick had feelings for Bartholomew, and Jester had been holding her breath for that ship when she noticed it. But it wasn’t meant to be. By the time Carrick confessed his feelings, Bartholomew and Robin had had their first kiss, and it was pretty clear who was ending up with whom. Carrick ended up with the barkeeper, Conwall, happily married in the epilogue, but Jester was never satisfied with that ending.

Which was why she liked katze_writing.

They only had one fic they were working on at the moment,  _ Half Agony, Half Hope _ . It was a Regency AU, it was Barrick, it was agonizingly slow burn, and it was some of the best damn writing Jester had ever consumed. If it hadn’t been published on a fanfiction website for this fandom, she wouldn’t have noticed it was fanfic. She had read it over and over again, almost like a ritual, and she had made a ton of art for it. Jester had drawn the moment when Carrick, a humble shopkeeper, had first met Bartholomew, the son of a cruel nobleman. She’d drawn a scene where Bartholomew was reading to Carrick in his huge library during the night. She’d even made art of scenes that hadn’t happened yet, their first kiss under the sycamore tree with the hollow bit where they’d hidden their secret letters, and their secret wedding at a darkened church with Pax, the gnome cleric of the party, officiating it. Jester loved it so, so much. And it didn’t help that katze was very sweet, responding to every comment she made on each new chapter with gratitude and little smiley emoticons. She couldn’t wait for the newest chapter.

So she went to her bookmarks and refreshed again.

Not yet.

Jester’s phone pinged with the little ringtone that meant a message on Discord. Which was odd; she rarely used it nowadays. The servers she was on were either for her old comic book fandoms that she wasn’t as into anymore, or for general art, which were all ghost towns now. Jester checked her phone.

**SecretButtonCollection has sent a friend request.**

Huh. She recognized the username, but how, she wasn’t sure. Maybe a lurker on an old art server? Jester checked and yeah, that was it. The stranger also sent a message.

**SecretButtonCollection:** ru @lady_fancypants_ on twitter?

**LadyFancypants:** yep! that’s me! why do you ask?

**SecretButtonCollection:** i saw ur robimew art on the old art server originally, so i followed u on twitter, and everyone on the robimew server is talking about inviting u

**SecretButtonCollection:** so i am.

Jester paused. She’d heard about that server. During the initial campaign, Discord wasn’t really on her radar, and she hadn’t expected there to be a flourishing server for that ship still. Then again, with the recent oneshot Hit Dice had posted last Valentine’s Day themed around their wedding, and the fact that they were releasing novels about their adventures after the campaign officially ended, Jester wasn’t shocked either. But still, she hesitated. 

**LadyFancypants:** how big is it? is it busy?

**SecretButtonCollection:** there are

**SecretButtonCollection:** uh   
**SecretButtonCollection:** 425 of us   
**SecretButtonCollection:** and we’re pretty busy

Another reason to hesitate. On the one hand, Jester was itching for a bigger community. But maybe not that big.

**LadyFancypants:** do u guys  _ only _ ship robimew?

**SecretButtonCollection:** oh no! we have other ship channels! caleb is posting a barrick longfic rn, and cali is writing a  _ really good _ ibin modern au too!

Okay, okay, that sounded better. Safer. And it had some of her favorites on there.

**SecretButtonCollection:** we also have channels for hd2! a lot of ppl r posting fics and art for that! and we have a live chat channel and everything!

**LadyFancypants:** oh cool! 

After a moment’s hesitation, Jester made her decision.

**LadyFancypants:** you know what   
**LadyFancypants:** send me the link!

WIthin seconds, she got a link to a server named “Robimew Shipping Zone” with 425 members and 52 people online at the moment.

**SecretButtonCollection:** see u there! im nott, one of the mods!

**LadyFancypants:** sweet! Thanks!

Jester clicked the link and popped right in.

* * *

Caleb’s phone buzzed on the desk near his computer, buried under the typed stacks of paper with notes scribbled in the margins in red ink. Normally he was rapt in grading, but it was Friday during lunch. He was tired and wanted to go home and write. His phone going off was a welcome relief. He checked it. A private message from Veth, his pseudo-mother via the internet. 

**SecretButtonCollection:** I SENT HER THE LINK

**SecretButtonCollection:** SHES JOINING UP

Caleb froze a little. It was really happening. Wow, she had really done it.

Jester was his favorite artist in the Hit Dice fandom. She made art for a bunch of different ships, including ones he never knew he liked before seeing them together. Her work was incredible. Had he not had a very,  _ very _ cute cat, he would’ve had some of her art as his wallpaper for his phone. 

But he really, really started to become invested when she began reading his fanfic.

He knew it was her. She'd comment on every chapter about how she wanted to draw a certain scene or character or moment, and sure enough, it'd appear on her Twitter within the week. She even came up with ideas that he knew he would have to use in future chapters. How Caleb didn't think of having Bartholomew and Carrick kiss for the first time under their sycamore tree was beyond him. But having to see her, potentially  _ interact _ with her...that was scary. That made him nervous. He was hardly on there anyways, though, so maybe he could get away with lurking. Maybe.

But he checked anyways. He wanted to see her come in.

\----> A wild  **LadyFancypants** appeared.

The bot they had on the server, nicknamed after Bartholomew’s pet raven, Edallpoe, greeted who he assumed to be Jester with the typical “read the #rules and introduce yourself in #introductions” spiel. A few minutes later, the introductions channel lit up with a new message.

**LadyFancypants:** hi!!!!

Name: Jester

Age: 25

Pronouns: she/her

Favorite scene: as far as non-spoilery moments go, probs the part where Bartholomew and Eddy dance and sing for money in Wisterion

Social media links: @lady_fancypants_ on twitter and FionaFancypantsMcgee on ao3!

Caleb sighed. Of course it was her. The nervousness didn’t go away. Nott was online, and quickly gave Jester her roles so she could see the rest of the server. He went into the general chat to watch everyone say hello.

**momgoblin (Nott):** I TOLD YOU I WOULD

**bow on a bo staff (beau):** HOLY SHIT

**Cali, a literally sweet heart:** oh wow! welcome to the server!

**bow on a bo staff (beau):** SHE’S HERE HOLY SHIT

**bow on a bo staff (beau):** MAMA NOTT DELIVERS

**Caduceus Clay:** hello!

**LadyFancypants:** wow! didn’t know you all were this excited for me!

**momgoblin (Nott):** ofc we are!

**momgoblin (Nott):** you feed our hungry goblin hearts with art

**momgoblin (Nott):** and smut

**Cali, a literally sweet heart:** :broom: off to nsfw with you

**momgoblin (Nott):** ok ok ill stoppppp

Caleb laughed a little, relieved. He probably was going to go under the radar for now, as long as Veth didn’t say anything--

**momgoblin (Nott):** OH SHIT I FORGOT

**momgoblin (Nott):** @Caleb (katze_writing) WANTED TO TALK TO YOU

Gods be damned.

**LadyFancypants:** WAIT

**LadyFancypants:** KATZE WRITING IS ON HERE????????????

**LadyFancypants:** I LOVE?????? HIS FIC????????

**momgoblin (Nott):** _i know??????????_

**momgoblin (Nott):** he is such a good writer

**LadyFancypants:** NOW I NEED TO POST MY ART HERE!

**LadyFancypants:** what channel do i use?

**Cali, a literally sweet heart:** if it’s sfw, #other-ships-hd1, if it’s nsfw, #nsfw-other-ships

**LadyFancypants:** got it! i got pics for boooooth ;)

Oh shit, she posts smut. He forgot about that account. Feeling the hot burn of a blush already, Caleb closed the app, content to wait to look at the art she posted after work.


End file.
